Pacific Crest 2010 race report:

Transcription

1 Pacific Crest 2010 race report: I admit it...i love reading other peoples race reports...but hate writing them, which is why I haven't written one until now. Reading other race reports have both inspired me and taught me valuable lessons about racing, so here is my contribution... We combined Pac Crest with a vacation in Sunriver, so my 'tapering' consisted of a few haphazard workouts, a hike through Smith Rock Park, and eating and drinking the way someone racing probably shouldn't! Oh well, I had a good base and what at the time seemed like a good race plan (yeah, it was one of those races). We drove the bike course a few days before the race and stopped at the lake to check things out...wow that water was cold early in the week...i think it warmed a bit by race time. I saw a couple of Beavers at the lake also checking things out and talked with a couple of guys whose bikes looked more expensive than my car! They also had quads bigger than my torso! They were biking the course, I think they probably had race numbers below 50! Driving the course was scenic enough, and I couldn't wait to bike it. The next day I actually rode part of the course backwards, about 35 miles total. The last 20 miles were going to be fun. Race morning was uneventful aside from the cold my daughter gave everyone the day before! I fueled up with a bagel, OJ, and oatmeal, grabbed my T1 and T2 bags and headed to the bus. Got to the lake and set up T1. Walked around and chatted with people and wished everyone a good race, lots of Beavers were racing! I put on my wetsuit about 30 min before the race and started to stretch a little, staying pretty calm right up until race time. I was in wave 4 so I had lots of people to chase! As soon as I got in the water my goggles fogged big time, probably due to how cold it was. This is where I made my first mistake, I took the goggles off and tried to clear them. When I put them back on they were

2 worse...so bad I couldn't really see anything! After several attempts to clear them I realized I must have had body glide on my fingers which was now smeared all over the goggles. Now, I love body glide - it's waterproof and doesn't come off - which is not so great when all you have is water to clean with! Oh well, I had to make the best of it. The horn went off and I just started swimming, if figured as long as I could see people on both sides I was probably going the right direction. Swimming nearly blind is kind of disconcerting and I actually stopped 3 or 4 times to take off my goggles to get my bearings. My swim pace was alright; I just went easy knowing I needed to save everything for the bike and run. It went fast and before I knew it I was out of the water at my bike. I proceeded with my painfully slow 4+ min. transition (I know, even my wife makes fun of me - one race she asked me if I put makeup on and dried my hair). My swim time was around 32:30, not bad for me considering I was probably not swimming very straight. Oh well, these things are not decided during the swim. I headed out on the bike and felt good. My heart rate was a too high for the first 10 miles, at times reaching LT. I eventually settled down and got into a good rhythm. My plan was to get about calories in on the bike with a combo of gels, cubes and liquid in two bottles. I would finish the first bottle by aid station 1 and grab some H2O. (When I got to T2 I realized I only took about 850, probably too few.) The first 20 miles were pretty flat with a gentle climb around mile 18. At 1 hour I was somewhere between 20 and 21 miles - so far so good. The next 7-8 miles were rollers, and I kept my HR below 150 for the most part and felt pretty good. At mile 27.5 my chain popped off! Huh? How the heck did I do that? Oh well, better than the flat I got at HOTV! I popped it back on as about 10 people passed me, got on the bike and started the first big climb. I had a hard time keeping

3 my HR as low as I would have liked (a few times I caught myself at LT or higher!). I backed off a bit but was still going pretty strong. I felt like I was passing more people than were passing me although maybe this was just wishful thinking. There was a little downhill before the next even bigger climb around mile 34. This second climb was tough, a few people were walking, but overall I felt pretty strong - looks like doing Marys Peak two weeks ago helped. If I have done a more scenic bike ride I can't remember it, this ride was beautiful! When I passed Todd Lake I knew the descent was near. Around mile 38 the 10 mile steep descent started and wow was it fast; I got up to about 46 mph at one point. After this the last 10 miles were pretty flat with some intermittent downhill. At that point I was ready to get off the bike. My legs were tired and I was wondering if I went too hard (although there was nothing I could do about it now). I hit T2 with a bike time around 2:54 which turned out to be exactly mph. This may not seem like much, but this was a fast bike for me, no way I could have done this last year. I guess training hard works...who knew? And now the run... As I ran through T2 some shot blocks flew out of my pocket and my other nutrition left over from the bike felt like it was going to fall out too, so I grabbed it and threw it down on my bag as I racked my bike (mistake number 2). As I was running out of T2 I realized I had no calories with me. No big deal, I read somewhere on the website they would have calories on the course (mistake number 3 - trusting what I read on the race website). I started running and actually felt better than I thought I would. I settled into about a 7:30 pace knowing that I would slow down in a mile of two. After a mile I looked down and realized I forgot to put my race number on - hmmm I wonder what the penalty for that is? I guess I'll find out because there was no way I was going back! The first 2 or 3 miles felt ok and I actually passed a couple of people in

4 my age division. At mile 4 things started to go downhill. I was at 32 minutes when I hit mile 4 and thought to myself - that was hard, really hard...i have 9 to go and all I've seen out here is Heed and water, no calories... I'm in trouble. I spent the next 5 miles getting depressed as runner after runner in my age division passed me. I gave half hearted attempts to keep up but my legs would have none of it. At one point I stopped in a port- a- potty and thought - wow, it feels really good to not be running and have something to lean on, maybe I'll just sit down for a while, it doesn't smell too bad in here...no! focus, we have to keep running. By mile 9 I didn't care who passed me, kids, little old ladies with walkers, I just wanted to finish. I walked intermittently and even stopped to stretch once. Some dude doing the duathlon (he looked marginally better than me) and I chatted for a while as we kept passing each other. Around mile 11 Brendan and Pam came riding towards me on beach cruisers or something, each looking like they changed clothes, took a shower and a nap, and were checking the course - I thought to myself "how freaking slow am I?" They looked recovered and ready for the next race!!! It then sunk in that they had done the relay (a darn fast one I might add!) and had probably finished about 3 hours ago. I think I waved or grunted or something but things get a little fuzzy from here. Boy my piraformis hurts. I started walking again and the duathlete passed me again and I said "I think I'm done, my legs are spent". He stopped and said "you need a gel?" and threw me one. "You're awesome, good luck on your finish!". I choked down some raspberry sickeningly sweet slime chased by water at the next aid station and prepared to gut out the next two miles. I "ran" the whole way which consisted of about a 10 min/mile shuffle and stumbled across the finish line at around 5:32, with my run time a few seconds under 2 hours (not a good run for me, and actually my first triathlon where my bike place was higher than my run place). I grabbed some water and

5 stumbled to meet my family/support crew who were out in full force to cheer me on. I went to the medical tent for some stretching and massage as I was having difficulty just walking. I actually felt pretty good in a few hours and not bad the next day. I recovered better after this race than my first half- iron last year so I don't think fitness was a major problem. My big mistakes were going a little too hard on the bike and not having my own nutrition with me on the run (assuming there would be calories at the aid stations). I was also not as diligent about trying to get more calories in on the bike. The goggle thing was a nuisance, but probably didn't hurt me too much. Having a cold probably didn't help. A learning experience...please learn from my mistakes. Congrats to all who did this race and great to see so many familiar faces out there. My race was not the biggest story of the day however; while I was floundering out there my better half was running only her second marathon ever. She ran a 3:40 and qualified for Boston with 5 minutes to spare! She was 7th woman overall! At least one of us can stick to a race plan... Cheers! Jeff Boyd